Andrew_A

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

Another question: If Superclone took out Hitler, wouldn't the Nazi party lose a lot of popularity? I'm a poor student of history (that's an understatement ), but didn't the Nazis' popularity result from Hitler's oratorical skills and fame (or infamy)?

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

That was a interesting thought experiment, Lawnmower Boy. And when I'm done writing this 'riff' off of it, I'll rep you.

 

So, out Superman can figure out psycho-history style 'the future'. So, he makes preparations...

Part of the reason the British backed down before Hitler at Munich is that the Royal Air Force was not 'ready to fight' and told Chamberlain so. When the British backed down, it forced the French to back down since they were afraid to face the Germans without British support (with good reason; the Germans outnumbered them.) But, our 'Superman' has seen what's coming, and given the RAF 2nd generation radar and 1st generation jet intercepters (Think 'Gloster Meteor' or Me-262 or even P-80 Shooting Stars). With the RAF ready to defend against the bomber hordes (a real fear in 1938), the Royal Navy with improved sonars (thanks, Superman!), and other improvements, Neville Chamberlain can stand up to Hitler, and with French support back the Czech government against Nazi bullying. A properly timed demonstration of the new fighters plus implying there's a bomber version, and WW2 starts in 1938 with a Anglo-French offensive into the Ruhr in response to the German attack on Czechaslovakia(sp). Properly done, our Superman will ensure that the sun never, ever sets on the British Empire.

What happens to America in this scenario? Does Roosevelt get re-elected? What about the Great Depression? Or the New Deal? What happens to Trueman? What does the Empire of Japan do? Does Pearl Harbor still happen? Assuming Hitler's out on his @$$, does that mean the Communist Republic of Germany invents the atom bomb? Without his war record does Eisenhower enter politics? Do we see a baby boom? Does my mother exist in this timeline?*

So many questions.

*Mom was born in '49. Uncle John was '47 and Aunt Maggie was '48.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

And Dina Meyers' date=' but she only wore the suit a couple of times on Birds of Prey.[/quote']

 

I forgot about Dina. Old age is creeping up on me.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

My version of Batgirl. Height and Weight are Silver Age.

 

Best live action version Yvonne Craig. Best animated version Batman The Animated Series.

Not a lot of candidates for the live action version. Yvonne Craig or Alicia Silverstone. That's not a difficult choice.

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

I think you guys are looking at this backwards. This is what I was talking about upthread. You're starting from the event and looking forward to the consequences. That's not terribly fun or interesting. After all, what's going to make for a more exciting campaign: "Back in the 30s there was some costumed freak who got killed by the Heer while trying to stop the invasion of Poland?" Or would you prefer, "World War Two started in 1944 after Stalin and the German Communists invaded Romania?"

If history stays on the same course as before, then what is the point of this thread? You might as well start a new thread about why Superman (or the Justice Society or the Invaders or the Freedom Fighters or whomever) couldn't prevent World War Two. It might make for an interesting thought experiment but it wouldn't make for a very fun campaign.

Let's just agree right now that 30s and 40s Superman couldn't end the war. What if it was the John Byrne Superman instead? What if it was 40s Superclone, but he decided to use his powers strategically instead of engaging the German military directly? What if the League of Nations had the intestinal fortitude to prosecute Hitler for war crimes? What if getting rid of Hitler led to the collapse of German fascism?

Rather than deciding that Superclone stopping the war is impossible, start with the end and figure out how we got to "here" from "there".

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

Damn, got beat to it again. This split shift factory work is for the birds....

 

~Rex... Tried to rep but spread this or that etc...

Took care of it.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

Bad About DC "The New 52"

 

"Here's an idea. Since we've written ourselves into a corner by misusing our most popular and iconic character in a bid to make things easier for us as writers, let's toss everything out and restart the whole universe again. This time we'll change their costumes and make them younger and edger, bring back some of the original characters like Barbara Gordon as Batgirl because the other half dozen or so didn't work out, and add a bunch of new characters to show how diverse and with it we are."

 

First off, if they were staring all over again why have Barbara as Oracle at all.

 

Second, if they wanted to start things all over again why don't they just say it's a New Universe, one that has nothing to do with anything that happened after the Crisis.

 

Next, the writer of Wolf Creek will be writing Wonder Woman.

 

(I'm sorry to bring that horrible movie up again but it really got under my skin.)

I've never even heard of Wolf Creek (I'll look it up later). All I know is, there is no way in Hell the writer of 100 Bullets should be writing Wonder Woman. Worse, nobody at DC thought to themselves, "Okay, Brian wants to turn this into a horror comic.* Maybe - just maybe - he's the wrong person for the job."

*Yeah there aren't enough of those in the nu52.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

I vaguely remember a book like that. If would be fun to allow new players to have a chioice between running a 300-point superhero or a team of 150-point heroic-level characters that' date=' together were a match for a superhero. I still think it's a good concept, but I lost the book years ago.[/quote']

 

Do you mean this book? Get it while you can!

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

He has to hear of it and get there first. Afaik he only had "shortly under the speed of sound".

Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant was, the day after Pearl Harbor what does Superclone do?

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

Good About DC

 

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

 

Many ideas that ended up in the comics took place on the show.

 

Lois and Clark getting married.

A clone of Superman seeing Luthor as his Father as Superboy did (although that was also the Bizarro version as well).

A super villain becoming President of the United States (Tempus instead of Lex Luthor)

 

Plus you had Lex Luthor as the ruthless criminal mastermind with the facade of a billionaire industrialist. Wasn't the scientific genius that we know and love to hate.

 

By the way, am I the only one who thinks Cold Play's Viva La Vida should be Lex Luthor's Theme Song?

Actually, Lois and Clark didn't lead to the titular couple getting married. It was the creative team on the Superman comics deciding they should get married. The plan was that they got engaged in Superman #50 and the wedding was supposed to happen in #75. Unfortunately the TV people balked.

They told Mike Carlin (the Superman group editor at the time) and all the rest of them that Lois and Clark couldn't get married until they (the TV people) were ready. So, at one of DC's writer's retreats, they tried to figure out what to do for the 75th issue. They needed something big, something momentous.

Then someone (I think it was Roger Stern) joked, "Why don't we kill him?" To which Mike Carlin replied, "Yeah? And then what?"

You know the rest.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Instead of forcing people to pay for material they don't want, how about making intro adventures part of a PDF bundle. Buy the PDF of CC normally or buy the CC PDF plus "Viper's Nest" (for example) for a little more.

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

Here's a question. Assuming the war in the Pacific starts the same way, what does Superclone do about Pearl Harbor? Does the public still support FDR declaring war on the Japanese? Does that trigger the war in Europe?

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Maybe someone could do modules as part of a larger sourcebook? For example, if HG ever comes out with a Viper 6e book, it could include an updated version of the Viper's nest adventure.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Yes, this is want I mean (I dislike Shuler's style). As for the art, we are in agreement, it was competent. What I am saying is that the whole look "feels" like a super supplement. The art is good enough and represents the genre well enough,the layout and borders enhance the four color feel and the one pager at the start of every chapters (including the full page drawing and colorful title) makes the book fun. So it is less a matter of "wow! the art is great!".

 

Actually, GURPS Supers 4th has some of the same art but it as less of it, no catchy chapter titles or full page drawing at the start of said chapters and the layout and borders don't really enhance the look. The book just feel bland.

Totally agree. Especially the bit about the opening chapter art. That did look nice and it did give a nice "pulse pounding" feel, suggestive of superhero art. However, if I had a preference, I like the art from M&M* or the Champions Genre book. Since HG already paid for it, they could always recycle it.

*That's 2e and later. I've never understood the hype surrounding the "wonderful" 1st edition art. Like I said: It's subjective.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Regarding art, I went on Sam's site tolook at his work and was pleasantly surprised. There are pieces of art that I really like in various HERO books and cover that I didn't even realised it was his. My expectations are very high now!

 

Regarding B&W interior, one super book that I believe is very well executed in that regard and feels like a four color supplement is GURPS Super 3rd (not 4th). I have the 3rd or 4th printing which got a major art overhaul compared to the previous printings so be careful.

Proof positive of the subjectiveness of art. I thought the art in Supers was competent. That's it.

(If by third or fourth printing, you mean the guy who drew the book after Doug Shuler, then that's who I'm referring to.)

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

Just a side/tangential note:

There is/was a story from the Golden Age which had a similar plotline: Supes flies over, nabs both Hitler and Stalin and presents them to the League Of Nations World Tribunal for summary judgement.....

 

Sadly, while I am certain the story exists (I believe I saw it mentioned in the documentary Look, Up In The Sky: The Amazing Story Of Superman circa 2006) my Google-Fu is not strong enough to find specifics.......yet. Still searching.

 

EDIT:

 

Here's a reference (Source: http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=articles/supes-war )

 

From section III-"Other Print Media":

 

The February 27, 1940 edition of Look Magazine ran a two-page sequence written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster entitled "What If Superman Ended the War?" In that sequence, Superman had tired of the destruction of war and decided to bring it to an abrupt end. He flew to Berlin and captured Adolph Hitler, then went to Moscow to capture Joseph Stalin. Leaping high above the mountaintops, Superman flew the pair to Geneva Switzerland, to a court before the League of Nations where the two dictators were placed on trial for war crimes against their own people. Interestingly, this was published before Roosevelt and Churchill invited Stalin to be one of the allies, and Russia joined in the battle against Germany. Still, it showed the sentiment toward Russia during the 1940's, and that even then the world opinion of 1940 considered the Russian people to be oppressed.

 

 

 

 

 

-Carl-

I posted the scan of the comic earlier in this thread.

Also, if you want a hard copy, the story is reprinted int The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (not to be confused with Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told). DC published it back in the early 90s and it's out-of-print.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

If C² is a no go, how about CCom? (I still want Rhino. )

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

well' date=' it shows if you do "reply with quote," but c{sup}2{/sup}, replace {} with ['].

C²

EDIT: Okay. That worked.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

No love for Cee Squared?

No. Just for you.

Seriously, how the heck do you do superscript on the boards. Cee Squared is not a bad idea.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

How did George screw her up? He's the one that originally tried straightening out the character's origin issues with Who Is Donna Troy?

 

Sadly, Byrne got in there somewhere and we ended up with Who Is Donna Troy This Time?

I don't think we're thinking of the same storyline, but the "Who is Donna Troy?" story that I remember, was a really well done pre-Crisis New Teen Titans story by Marv Wolfman (with art by Perez).

The screw up I was referring to, was the George Perez post-Crisis Wonder Woman reboot, where Diana had just started her career with no Wonder Girl. He and Wolfman tried to fix it with "Who is Wonder Girl?", but personally, I preferred the old status quo.

Re: Superman Averts World War II?

OK so some Superman knockoff decides to fly over to the German Polish border, exposes the false flag operation (which nobody bought anyway), then flies into Germany, abducts Adolph Hitler, and dumps him in from of the International Court. Which of course has no idea what to do with him. But, rattled, Hitler calls the invasion of Poland off for now.

 

Consequences:

 

1. Germany starts dumping beaucoup resources into anti-Superman research. Magic, giant robots, supersoldier serums, extraterrestrial communication, atomic weapons, glowing green meteorites spunky reporter girlfriends, anything that might give the big guy an owie.

 

2. Japan is caught in a jam. The United States is still going to embargo them, but politically it's impossible for them to back off of China. Any politician who suggests it will probably be murdered and I'm not being figurative. They might go for it anyway, just so they can politically save face by losing to an overwhelming force (Superman), or gain it by successfully arranging a trap for him to fall into.

 

3. Whether Japan pulls back or is defeated, that means the Chinese Nationalists and Communists will be back at it with each other, and the Communists probably still win. That "Superman" doesn't take action to prevent that will make American right wingers in Congress take a second look at him.

 

4. Without World War II Roosevelt probably isn't re-elected. Certainly not in 1944, and probably not in 1940. Wilkie lost because he was caught between isolationist and internationalist factions of his own party. Had the election been fought on the subject of the economy, he would have been in better shape.

I think it's best to do something Ken Hite suggested (in GURPS Infinite Worlds and the Wild Talents game) and design your alternate history with the end in mind, rather than create a divergence and try to think of the logical consequences. It's more fun that way and you'll be more emotionally invested in the final product.

Although if you're using this thread to consider cool possibilities that's a great idea too. I'm looking forward to the wild speculation.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

I would agree with you AA if Conner Kent was the Superboy that came out of reign of the Supermen' date=' but he isn't. The horribly stupid retcon that made him both half Kryptonian and related to Lex Luther basically ruined the character. He was a more interesting character when he was a genetically engineered clone whose powers were made to mimic Superman's, yet were distinctly different. He had a too much attitude for his own good, but it was better than the emo crap they pulled with him later.[/quote']

 

More or less in agreement. The problem with DC's Didiocracy, is that fun is a four letter word. Which just proves that the people at DC can't do math or spell.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

No, but fellow Hero players chatting in a game shop might use the word "Fred," and other gamers in earshot won't know what they're talking about. I think Rod does have a valid point about it possibly contributing to a sort of inside-joke cliquishness that I'm not sure is conducive to encouraging new players.

 

An abbreviation in writing is one thing; a "codename" by which only "insiders" know the book is kind of another.

Actually, this might be a neat bit of viral marketing. A bunch of gamers are standing in a store talking about "Krissie"*, someone in the store want to know what they're talking about, the gamers tell them their referring to Cthulu Hero (or whatever). Next thing you know you have a sale. Either that or someone who'll tell everyone about the weirdos giving their pulp horror game cute names.

I never refered to it as Fred. I don't know refereing to a rpg with the name of a poerson always weirded my out. I always used Hero to refer to the system in general. Almost everyone knew what I meant. I have been using CC since I posted in this thread. It's just easier and less time consuming. Plus at worst you sound like your saying yes yes in italian lol.

I thought "si" was spanish.

Ah well. My Japanese is (barely) better.

*That was the name of my first pet.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Not this nickname crap again. Call the Champions Complete and then anyone you're communicating with will understand. Otherwise' date=' it's like some kind of inside joke that will just make people who aren't in on it annoyed.[/quote']

 

But I liked Fred.

 

Either way, the in-joke probably did confuse a few people. I know when I first saw it, I remember thinking, "Who the heck is FRed?"

 

Will CC suffice?

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

Good About DC

 

The original Black Orchid, a mysterious super strong crime fighter with a give for disguise. No origin needed.

 

Bad About DC

 

New younger edgier versions of popular characters that even DC eventually admitted were horrible mistakes

 

Examples

 

The new Black Orchid being an abused wife easily caught and killed by Lex Luthor and then replaced by a plant.

I'm not a Black Orchid fan, but I agree with you up to a point.* Throwing out everything that made a character cool, for your own take, is silly. I hate the "everything-you-know-is-wrong" trope. Although, done right, the results are amazing. Sadly, it's rarely done right. The funny thing is, in interviews, Neil Gaiman considers Black Orchid (the miniseries) to be his weakest work.

Minor correction: The Black Orchid who died was always a plant. She was a clone of the easily abused house wife. It's implied that she became Black Orchid to avenge the original's death.

The six Batgirls that tried to replace Barbara Gordon.

There were only six?! I must have added a decimal point somewhere.

The new Green Arrow, Conner Hawke

Didn't read his comic. They never should have gotten rid of the trick arrows.

The new Superboy, Conner Kent

Best thing to come out of Reign of the Supermen.

Donna Troy having her name and powers and origin changed by anyone who showed up at DC's offices. Her being a Manhunter was suggested by the UPS guy who was dropping off Neil Gaiman's monthly Spider-Man for goodness sake.

George Perez screwed up a great character. Admittedly, he did it while rebooting Wonder Woman and that turned out great (until Mike Deodato showed up), so for that, I'll forgive him.

*Honesty compels me to admit that I did like the Neil Gaiman miniseries. (More than Neil did, oddly enough.) For a long time, it was the only thing he did that I found readable. At least, until I read Good Omens.